Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Water of Life's "Coup de coeur" (favourite): Domaine des Hautes Glaces





 Located at 892 meters high in the French Alps, The Domaine des Hautes Glaces (DHG) is a mountain farm distillery. It produces natural, handcrafted single malt managing the whole process on the same site by Jéremy Bricka and Fréderic Revol, both nature and whisky lovers. 
This full-integrated process is certified as fully organic using renewable and local sources.



From growing the grains to bottling the single malt, they work meticulously and are obsessed by the excellence through each step of the process. 
They daily make efforts to highlight and respect the particularities of their lands and the French historical distillation savoir-faire. 

The notion of terroir is at the heart of their approach meaning, as in wine making, each barrel is in link with a climate. Each plot used to grow their cereals has its own geographic characteristic: slope, microclimate, exposition, and geology.

After each harvest, the barley and rye grains are malted, brewed, fermented at the distillery and slowly double or triple distilled in their pot stills. This process allows them to elaborate a very aromatic distillate which will be transferred or not, depending of the product concerned, to barrels from various French vineyard regions (exclusively french barrels) waiting in the cellars to be filled. At this moment, the time takes its place for a more or less long maturation. At that stage, this is a question of patience…

As alchemists, they try to find the best balance between these six elements which take part in the single malt making process: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Metal, Wood in order to produce the best spirit as they can.

The DHG still not have whiskies available on sale and that’s not the most important. Their approach is to have the opportunity to carry on the different steps of the elaboration of their futures whiskies. Thus, they provide single malts at various stage of the maturation
L10#01, which was the first previous single malt made with barley available on sale, matured two months in French oak barrels. It allows to follow the influence of the barrels on the new make spirit.
Let’s have a look on their actual range…

Principium

From the first barley harvest of the Domaine des Hautes Glaces in 2009 (climate Les Gabert) were extracted 13 barrels of single malt whisky whose will be the oldest whiskies from the Domaine des Hautes Glaces.

In order to celebrate the launching of the distillery, the Domaine des Hautes Glaces has decided to share with us this historical beverage, through a very special vintage, PRINCIPIUM.


You acquire a labelled and corked… empty bottle.

The principle of this spécial serie of only 1616 bottles is the fortunate owners will have the oportunity to follow the maturation of their own whisky deciding to fill your Principium bottle whenever they deem the time is ripe with the original vintage of the Domaine des Hautes Glaces.

Whiskies lovers, let’s bottled our own 5 y.o, 10 y.o, 12 y.o, 15 y.o…and more ! A real dream for most of us.
It is a way to take part in the history of this amazing Alpine Farm Distillery, DHG.

Woska Serac

Woska is a generic name created by DHG defining a triple distillation (direct heat) of various grains harvested at the domaine. It’s an unageed, aromatic distillate reflecting the land from which it comes.

SERAC is the first opus of the serie, made from rye grown and harvested in Serre in 2010, where DHG grows this cereals. It is a unique concentrate of captivating flavors which can be enjoy as an aperitif, a digestive and also for stylish cocktail hours.

It can be perceived as a Irish whiskey ( because of the triple distillation tradition) but not aged and using rye or such as a tasty vodka…
Each one call it as he wants, the essential is to taste at least ones, it worth it!


Tasting notes

Colour: Colorless
Nose: Smooth, fresh and fruity through pear. Gentian and green anise notes. Hints of acacia honey.
Palate: Creamy and smooth. Malted rye combinated with fruity taste such as pear and plum. Pepper and cloves flavours. Almonds notes.
Finish: Soft, well-balanced and long finish.  Powerful spicy taste through  nutmeg and pepper. Emergence of fresh white floral notes. Persistence of malted rye.
ABV: 43%



S11#01

S.11#01 is the previous of the rye single malts serie, the « S » meaning rye in French, "seigle", harvest 2011, serie n°1.

Elaborated with rye harvested in 2011 (Climate Les Gabert) and matured 12 months, it’s the product of a direct heat double distillation matured in french oak barrels: ex-cognac barrels and new oak barrels (Tronçais forest). It allows us to discover the typicity of the rye cereals.


Tasting notes

Colour: Copper coloured
Nose: Almonds and gentian notes.
Palate: Grown and supple. Cereals, malted rye caracteristics (spicy and earthy) notes followed by prune taste.
Finish: Long and spicy through pepper, liquorice and tabacco notes.
ABV: 46 %
L10#03
L10#03 is the third and newest opus of the L10 serie, made of barley from the 2010 harvest (climate Andrieu), an ascending tasting from the spirit still to the whiskies. Matured 22 months in French oak barrels, this new single malt get closer to the universe of the malts of exception, taking its distance with the juvenile aspect of the two first L10 serie opus.
A real single malt in your own right!

Tasting notes

Colour: Pale gold
Nose: Smooth and subtle. White flowers and slight candied white flesh fruits (peach) combined with malted barley notes. Hints of truffle
Palate: Well-balanced and silky. Almond paste notes associated with citrus fruits, vanilla and pastry taste

Finish: Long and lingering. Malted barley fade down little by little. Roots, Ginger with slight camphor retro olfaction. Pleasant apricot tart note in the end of the glass.
ABV: 46%

Seductive by its fineness, its fruitness and its smoothness..
Love it!

Very promising range...Awesome!

From this summer 2013, we'll be able to enjoy the distillery visit...

More informations on the DHG website: 
http://hautesglaces.com/home.html (version FR)
http://hautesglaces.com/english/home.html (version EN)